Background: Cochrane systematic reviews are filled with loads of interesting data. In reality, they are not like journal articles at all but rather report on major research projects wherein a major effort of curation, quality assessment and results are presented. Currently, we only present our users with the whole ‘container’ of the Review while the valuable work and ‘nuggest’ remain mostly obscured by the full-text PDF presentation.

Objectives: To show how so-called ‘linked data’ technologies as part of a larger movement called the ‘semantic web’ might enable more modular use of Cochrane Review data in derivative products and presentations and for specific users.

Methods: A summary of the work done so far in the ‘Star Trek’ project looking at the key components of Reviews and how they can be modeled in linked data markup (OWL and RDFS). Then, Cochrane Review data can be transformed into RDF (Resource Description Framework, a linked data standard on the web) and queried to look ‘across Reviews’ and mashed up with others’ RDF datasets to enhance our users’ experience.

Conclusions: Linked data technologies offer a great opportunity for Cochrane to take the lead in the semantic web and Web 3.0. In order for Reviews to become sustainable, we need to look at presenting the key components in ways that make them more useful. Also, there are opportunities for making our data more discoverable and to partner with others in this new web of data.